Meta (Book 3): Rise of The Circle

by Reynolds, Tom

  "Winston actually has quite a few unique abilities. The particular ability he’s working on now is especially interesting. The closest analog we have for describing it is that he's able to exert control over otherwise seemingly random outcomes," Michelle answers for him.

  "Uhh ..." I say, struggling to make sense of what she just told me.

  "What Michelle means is that I can basically control luck," Winston says.

  "Control luck? What does that mean? How can someone control luck?"

  "Take that stack of cards on the table," Winston tells me, motioning to the cards. "Put them in the machine to get them nice and random but don't look at them yet."

  I do as he says and cut the deck of cards in half, placing each half on the plastic trays connected to the top of the machine. Once the deck is placed, the machine whirrs into action, quickly shuffling the cards and placing them neatly into the tray at the bottom of the machine in one tight stack.

  Winston focuses his attention on the cards then closes his eyes. It's quiet for an uncomfortably long time, and I start to wonder if Winston has fallen asleep. Just then, his eyes snap open.

  "Okay. Pick up the cards and look at them," he says.

  I pick up the cards, looking at him again before I turn them over and seeing that he's already got that same grin back on his face.

  I flip the cards over and start fanning them out on the table. The first card is an ace of spades. The second is a two of spades. The third is a three of spades, and so on.

  It's not until I get to the face cards that the pattern breaks, when a king comes before a queen in the deck.

  "Dammit, I was close," Winston says, laughing.

  "So you're telling me this machine didn't put those cards in order?" I ask, thinking I know the trick.

  "Technically, the machine did put the cards in order," Michelle interjects. "But Winston was able to exert enough influence over the randomness of the machine to put the cards into the order he wanted them to be in. This might not seem like much more than a simple magic trick, but what you probably didn't notice was when Winston rearranged the cards. He didn't focus on them until after they were already shuffled by the machine."

  "Huh, I get it," I say.

  Michelle stares at me, seeing right through me.

  "Okay, I don't get it. Can you explain?"

  "I've been able to influence situations as they happen since I found these bands, but the real trick is influencing them seemingly after the event has already passed," Winston says.

  "Yeah, that's right. How the hell did you rearrange them after the machine had already shuffled them?"

  "That's the part that we're still trying to understand," Michelle says. "Winston's abilities don’t seem to be strictly bound by the linear aspects of time."

  My eyes go blank again. Winston notices this time and picks up in English where Michelle left off.

  "What Michelle is saying is that I'm able to control certain situations that have already occurred as long as the outcome is not yet known. Once you picked up that deck of cards and looked at it, there would have been nothing I could do to change the order the machine placed them in, but as long as the outcome was still unknown and flexible, I could change it. Kinda like Schrödinger's cat."

  "The one that plays the piano in Snoopy?" I ask.

  "It's Peanuts, and no," Michelle corrects me. "Winston's ability is something we're still learning about. Right now he might not be able to do much more with it than what looks like some slight of hand, but we have literally no idea where it could go. Abilities like this are why we started this center and why we're helping metas understand and explore their powers. Who knows what Winston might be capable of with his abilities one day.

  “Well, we've interrupted your study session long enough, Winston. Thank you for taking the time to show us what you're working on, though."

  "No problem. I needed the break anyway. Don't want to risk working too hard here and painting the walls with my brains," Winston says.

  I give a small laugh, but Michelle doesn't. I'm starting to realize that her lack of humor wasn't part of her cover after all.

  "Nice to meet you," I say to Winston, who nods and waves before sitting back down at his table. I follow Michelle out of the room and close the door behind us to give Winston back his privacy.

  Michelle glances down at her watch.

  "Hmm. I didn't realize how late it's gotten. I think we have time to visit one more room today before I'm going to have to leave for a meeting."

  "That's fine with me. I'm sure I can get myself into plenty of trouble exploring on my own."

  "No, no, no, no, no. You're going to be heading back to the surface. We've already accelerated your onboarding process significantly. We'll pick back up tomorrow."

  "Seriously? I was just kidding about getting into trouble. I'm not a little kid, you know. I won't do anything stupid," I say, almost having even myself fooled.

  "It's not that, Connor. What you have to understand is that this facility, this entire endeavor, it's not just about heroics. It's not just about taking on as much as humanly possible, or metahumanly possible as the case may be. It's about making this, all of this, sustainable. You're still going to have to live your life as normally as possible for this to work."

  "I've gone this long without needing any help keeping my identity a secret."

  "It's not just about keeping your identity a secret, Connor. It's about keeping you tied to humanity. People who don't keep a foot in that world wind up like ..." She trails off, realizing she shouldn't finish her sentence.

  "Like who? Just say it. Like Jones?" I ask.

  "Like Midnight."

  The statement catches me off guard. I'm well aware that Midnight hasn't always been the best role model to look up to as far as work-slash-life balance is concerned, but everything he's done has been for the greater good. I'm not sure if he's still out there or not, but if he is, I'd bet my life that that hasn't changed.

  "Here we are," Michelle says, breaking the awkward silence and bringing me into the last room of the day.

  This room is different from the previous ones, which makes me even more curious about what's waiting behind the other closed doors. This room looks more like an old pawnshop or garage than a state-of-the-art metahuman training facility. The walls are lined with shelves containing books, various machine parts, sparring dummies, and about a million other things that I can't even identify. There are random people throughout the room, moving things from shelf to shelf or working on a pile of spare parts at a workbench. It's total sensory overload. Someone could probably spend years in here going through all of this stuff.

  "Hey there," says a voice from behind me that startles me out of my daydream.

  I turn around to find someone who looks like they have actually spent years doing just that. It's a teenage boy, maybe fourteen, with thick, black-framed glasses that magnify his eyes. Under those eyes are a series of dark, baggy circles that don't look like they belong on the face of someone this young. He's wearing a pair of tight jeans with holes in both knees and a t-shirt that references some movie that I'm not clever enough to get.

  "Hey, I'm Connor," I say.

  "Oh, I know who you are, Omni. It's great to finally, actually meet you. I'm Trevor," he says. He doesn't actually extend his hand to shake mine, though, and instead just kind of stands awkwardly in front of me, seemingly waiting for me to pick up the loose thread of the conversation. I glance over to Michelle, hoping for her help in navigating this particular social minefield, but she's speaking in hushed tones on her cellphone. Her body language suggests that the call is important and that she's not to be disturbed. Great.

  "I thought we weren't supposed to call each other by our alter ego names down here?" I ask, trying to make conversation.

  "You're right. Just couldn't help myself this time. You're not going to tell on me, are you?"

  Tell on him? Does he think this is a kindergarten?

  "No, your secret i
s safe with me."

  "Thanks."

  And here's that awkward silence again. Trevor is just staring at me, looking me right in the eye and not breaking contact. I don't think he's even blinking. Michelle's still on the phone. Dammit.

  "Soooo, what's all this stuff?" I ask.

  "This stuff? It's just a bunch of random stuff."

  This is even harder than I thought it would be. I'll take fighting another meta in the sky above a city over thirty more seconds of this conversation if it's going to be this hard.

  "I can see that. I meant more like what is this room for?"

  Trevor still just stares.

  "Like, what do you do in this room?"

  "Oh, you mean what are my abilities?" he asks.

  "Sure, that's close enough."

  "My meta name is Machine. When my bands are powered up, I can absorb and take on the capabilities of nearby machinery."

  "Any machine?"

  "I'm not entirely sure yet. That's why I'm down here. I'm going through a bunch of various makes and types of machines to find out where my weaknesses and vulnerabilities might lie."

  "That's really interesting. Can you show me an example of what you're talking about?" I ask.

  A wide smile instantly materializes across his face like he's been waiting for someone to ask him that his entire life.

  "Sorry about that," Michelle says suddenly as she interrupts and inserts herself into the conversation. "The person I wanted you to meet is right around the corner here."

  "Oh, Trevor here was just going to show me-"

  "I'm sorry. We're on a very tight schedule. There will be plenty of time to meet everyone and learn all about them in the coming weeks, though, I'm sure."

  Trevor is completely deflated.

  "Next time?" I ask him.

  His demeanor changes back, and he's all smiles again. I smile back and follow Michelle, who is already speed walking down an aisle of junk shelves. They seem to stretch on forever and are filled with just about everything you could imagine.

  "This is our miscellaneous inventory room," Michelle says without turning back to look at me, assuming that I've caught back up with her. "Everything in here is free to use during off-hours and downtime, but it cannot be removed from the facility."

  "Okay, but, um, what is it?" I ask.

  "It's simply an inventory of, well, I guess just about everything. We've found a lot of newer metas who exhibit ... unusual powers and abilities. I'm sure Trevor explained a little bit about his ability?"

  "Yeah. He was just about to show me when you came over."

  "You owe me one then. He would have kept you there all day explaining how they work. The truth is, though, we still don't fully understand much about them. That's what this room is for: learning. For that reason, we have it stocked with just about everything you could imagine."

  "I've noticed that. This place looks like a Wal-Mart had a baby with a mausoleum."

  "Ah, here's who I wanted you to meet," Michelle says a half second before I round the corner.

  The narrow shelves piled to the ceiling with crap give way to an expansive open space. The flooring is covered with blue padding like you would find in a gymnasium. The walls, or where I assume the walls would be if I could actually see them, are completely covered floor to ceiling with weapons: swords, maces, nunchucks, shields, knives, throwing stars, baseball bats, and a bunch of other stuff I don't even recognize but have pointy, sharp ends.

  "Connor, this is Nathanial Brubeck. Nathanial, this is Connor Connelly," Michelle says.

  I reach out my hand for him to shake. I'm starting to feel like I'm a politician or something today. Nathanial looks at it carefully for a second, almost like he isn't sure whether to trust it or not, before finally shaking my hand.

  Nathanial is tall and muscular, looking much more like a "man" than a teenager, at least much more than anyone else I've met here so far. I'm guessing he's an early bloomer, but even still, he must be a year or two older than I am. His hair is dark and long, reaching down to the line of his jaw. His hair, as well as the rest of him, is covered in sweat, but he doesn't seem to be out of breath.

  He does, however, seem to be very, very intense. I'm not sure if he's mad that we’ve interrupted ... whatever we just interrupted, or if this is just how he is.

  "Nice to meet you," I offer.

  He nods and turns back to the blue mat.

  "He can be a little intimidating," Michelle whispers to me. "And he's not much of a people person."

  "Yeah, I picked up on that," I whisper back. "So, what's his ability?"

  "Just watch."

  Nathaniel walks to the center of the gymnasium mat and stands still, closing his eyes. He waits.

  Without warning, tennis balls come flying from some unseen holes in each of the walls. Just as quickly a pair of katana blades appear in his hands. He slices each of the balls before they can reach him. They each fall into two evenly split pieces on the ground.

  A large medicine ball is ejected from the wall that his back is facing. He spins around on his heels and the sword in his right hand transforms into a full body-length shield, like one a Roman warrior would have used. In fact, it looks like it even has an old Roman symbol on it. The medicine ball collides with the shield and falls to the ground with a thud.

  Another hole in the wall opens up and unleashes a flurry of basketballs. There must be dozens of them, each one bouncing at different heights and speeds. Nathanial doesn't miss a beat, jumping head first over the first one right before it can hit him.

  In midair, the shield and katana both join together to form a Bo staff. Upon hitting the ground with both feet, Nathanial thrusts the Bo staff behind him, hitting the first bouncing basketball square in the middle, sending it flying into the opposite wall. The other balls are quickly dispatched as well. Some are swung at and others are bashed until there is just one lonely ball left, lazily bouncing toward him. He casually walks over to it and thrusts out his Bo staff one last time, spearing the basketball like a shish kabob. The air slowly hisses out of the deflating ball while I pick my jaw back up off the floor.

  "Whoa. That was incredible," I say out loud to no one in particular. It just kinda comes out.

  Nathanial glances over at me before he goes about picking up all the pieces of tennis balls and basketballs that are strewn throughout the gymnasium. When he's finished, he comes over to join Michelle and me.

  "That was really very impressive," I say. "So your metabands enable you to do all of that?"

  "No, training enables me to do all of that," he replies.

  "Nathanial's ability allows him to create almost any type of non-projectile weaponry you could ever imagine, but his fighting abilities are all natural," Michelle says for him.

  "You're telling me that aside from the little sword morphing thing, you could have done that without metabands?"

  Nathanial gives a small nod along with a small smirk.

  "Thank you for the demonstration, Nathanial." Michelle turns and waves for me to follow her.

  Once we're out of earshot from Nathanial, I start peppering her with questions about his abilities, but Michelle assures me that everything we’ve just witnessed, Nathanial was able to do before he even found his metabands. I push her for more information about him, but she tells me that he's very shy and that they respect the privacy of the students here. If there are parts of someone's past that they do not wish to share, that is their decision, not the decision of someone like Michelle.

  She's truthful with me and tells me that there are some people here who were not always “good,” but that if a person has been invited here that should be assurance enough for me that they have great potential for “good.” While they try to remain as open as possible, in contrast to The Agency, there are still some areas where trust is required on both ends.

  We reach the main hallway again, and without asking, I turn left to head back the way we came. Michelle grabs the back of my shirt and turns me back aro
und.

  "Isn't this the way back, though?" I ask.

  "It is, but it's not the only way out of here," she says.

  "What do you mean?"

  "For a plethora of reasons there are multiple entrances and exits from the facility. Did you think we built a concrete and steel bunker a mile under the earth and only put in one exit door? That wouldn't be very safe or legal."

  "Something tells me that the fire marshal hasn't been down to inspect this place."

  "Follow me," Michelle says with a knowing smile.

  We walk farther down the featureless hallway until we reach what, to me, seems like a random door.

  "How do you remember what's behind all of these doors? They all look exactly the same," I say.

  "There's a system to it. You'll get the hang of it. In the meantime, though, I'm afraid this is where I'm going to have to leave you."

  "You're not coming back up to the surface with me?"

  "No, there's still some work I have to take care of down here, but I trust that you'll be able to take care of yourself for the rest of the night."

  "What am I supposed to do, though?"

  "You're sixteen and I've just given you the night off to do anything you'd like and you're asking questions? Are you the type of kid who reminds his teacher when she forgets to assign homework too?"

  "Point taken."

  "It's been a stressful week for you, Connor, and I know that this is all very new to you, both upstairs and down here. Take tonight to settle in a little bit. Explore. Meet regular people. Talk to them."

  "Wow, this seems weird coming from you."

  "It's important that you retain some semblance of a social life. People will notice when you're not around, so being able to have social connections to fall back on will become important for establishing your day-to-day identity."

  "Oh, so this is really more about making sure no one suspects me?"

  "They aren't mutually exclusive, Connor. If you really want this life, you're going to have to start learning that quickly."

  "So what's behind this door? Another classroom that's secretly an elevator?"

  "Something like that. After you," Michelle says as she opens the door and steps aside to let me in. The room is much, much smaller than the classroom-sized elevator we took down here.